farmlet.co.nz Life on our small farm in New Zealand

November 10, 2006

Creatures in the Long Grass

Filed under: Cows,Wildlife — Rebecca @ 9:25 pm

Our front paddocks haven’t been grazed for a long time, and have become pretty overgrown. When we put our cows in one of the paddocks a couple of days ago, the grass was nearly over their heads! Fortunately, the cows take their job of mowing down the grass very seriously. We need to get the grass in those front paddocks under control and include them in the regular grazing cycle. Since the cows get most nutrition from the new growing tips of the grass, and don’t do so well on old rank growth, it’s better to graze an area reasonably regularly and not let the grass get so long.


Hungry heifer, Rosy

Before we could put the animals in the front paddocks, we had to pull away ropes of kikuyu grass that had grown over the electric fence. As I took a step forward to tug on an especially big rope of grass, something caught my gaze — something small and green and wonderful. There, on a big lush leaf sat a little green frog. I called Kevin, and we spent a good while admiring this fine creature. We have a stream and several boggy areas on the Farmlet, which should be good frog habitats, but this is the first time we’ve actually seen a frog here. We hope we’ll see more as time goes on. Since we’ve fenced the cows out of the stream area now, it should become an increasingly attractive wildlife habitat.


Green and Golden Bell Frog

November 7, 2006

Garlic Scapes

Filed under: Food and Recipes — Rebecca @ 12:00 am

Yesterday we enjoyed a shared lunch at the home of some friends who live up the end of this road. We relished the delicious food, conversation with like-minded individuals, and a leisurely wander around part of a beautiful organic property.

During our post-prandial wander, we stopped to admire the garlic beds, and noticed lovely tender scapes (flower heads) emerging from the elephant garlic. Garlic scapes need to be picked off, so that the plants channel their energy into forming larger bulbs rather than flowers. It turns out that our neighbours don’t care to eat garlic scapes, so we and the other visitors pitched in to help pick them — and left for home with boxes full of these tasty treats.


Garlic scapes

Eating garlic scapes takes me back to the year when I lived in Korea, and tasted garlic scape kimchi — a spicy, lacto-fermented delicacy. (Before that, I didn’t even know you could eat any other part of the garlic apart from the bulb.) I can’t find a recipe for garlic scape kimchi, so have improvised one, which I’ll post on this website if it turns out ok! Apart from making kimchi from the scapes, we’ve also enjoyed them sauteed in olive oil with a little salt. Cooking mellows their pungency, leaving a delicious asparagus-like taste.

November 3, 2006

Debris

Filed under: Garden — Rebecca @ 10:30 pm

We have collected a lot of debris since we arrived here on the Farmlet. My parents have moved, and their neighbours moved recently, also. We were only too happy to pick up some of the resulting debris: scrap timber and roofing materials, black polythene, plastic netting, strips of weed mat (my parents used be in commercial horticulture), wire, plant pots, and even the wheels and base of an old cart that was once used for harvesting lilies. Most of this is high-quality debris, after all. . . and we are sure it will come in handy sooner or later!


Debris

Acquiring the debris was the easy part. Stacking and storing it is not so simple, and sometimes we find ourselves wondering if perhaps the various debris piles around our place will just keep growing until they swallow the whole Farmlet. We seem to have piles of junk everywhere! Pausing to look down the other day from the pasture, I’m afraid I found the view of our house paddock a little distressing. Still, since we are trying to get our show on the road cheaply, and with minimal waste of resources, freedom from debris is a luxury we can’t allow ourselves.


House and surrounding area, with debris use and storage indicated

Almost every day, we are building our dreams out of those piles of debris: Rope and timber for the clothesline, plastic mesh for the pea frames, concrete blocks and torn-up cardboard boxes for the herb garden. As we see these projects materialising, it seems that perhaps the piles of debris will not swallow the Farmlet after all. Instead, the Farmlet is swallowing the debris, and transforming it even beyond what we dreamt of.


Becky builds a pea frame

Pea flowers

A while ago, when I was lamenting the mess and debris around this place, I happened to read a post on Path to Freedom that touched on the same issue. At the Path to Freedom homestead, on an intensely cultivated 1/5-acre section in the city of Pasadena, they can’t allow themselves the luxury of being untidy. And I was thinking it would be a luxury NOT to have a mess! Upon further consideration, I find that we are very lucky to have the luxury of five somewhat untidy acres, and neighbours who don’t seem to mind about the state of our yard.

October 31, 2006

Developing the Nearest Area First

Filed under: Garden — Rebecca @ 10:33 pm

We like the advice from Bill Mollison’s Introduction to Permaculture: “develop the nearest area first, get it under control, and then expand the edges” (10). When we’re feeling a bit daunted by the current disarray of the Farmlet, these words are comforting, and help us find a focus. The book also advises that the area of most intense cultivation, which needs to be visited most often, should be closest to the house. This sounds like a compelling shot of common-sense to us! In line with this advice, I’ve just started to create a herb garden right outside the kitchen door.


Iris

Our “nearest area,” or our house paddock, still has a long way to go in terms of its permaculture development. Bit by bit, we are trying to make it as productive as possible, replacing invasive and undesirable plants with plants that will produce food or otherwise be of use to us. Apart from one small potato patch over the fence, all our vegetables and other annuals are planted in the house paddock.

As spring warms the ground, our vegetables are not the only plants taking off in the house paddock. A few troublesome weeds are also coming to our attention. Over the past few days, we’ve been working at getting rid of young privet plants from around the yard. Privet is a very invasive weed in this climate, and will grow to form a wide and dense thicket as it seeds and spreads. A thicket of privet is not part of our plans for the house paddock, so those plants have to go. Once privet matures, it is very hard to get rid of, growing back from the stump whenever you cut it down. Luckily, younger plants are not too difficult to pull out.

Our first spring on the Farmlet is also bringing to light a few welcome surprises — purple irises and red hot pokers helping to hold the soil on steep banks by the driveway, and apple blossoms in the area that the previous owner started to establish as an orchard.

October 26, 2006

Building a Clothesline and Other Subversive Behaviour

Filed under: Energy,Household — Rebecca @ 11:53 pm

What’s one of the simple joys of life on the Farmlet? Kevin and I relish the freedom to line-dry our laundry in the fresh air. For much of my life, I might have taken an outdoor clothesline for granted. That was before I went to live in Irvine, Southern California.


Can you ever be too far away from Irvine?

Back in Irvine, the student housing complex where I lived forbade subversive practices like air-drying laundry. (Such rules are commonplace around Irvine, and not just in student housing.) One was supposed to use the expensive coin-operated tumble dryers they’d supplied, of course. Coming to New Zealand from Southern California, we really think it’s nice to be able to dry our laundry

a)without wasting energy,

b)without being threatened with sanctions by angry bureaucrats, and

c)without fearing we’ll be branded as enemy combatants.

Recently, we have had to build a new clothesline. Our old clothesline died a sad death when we cut down the gum trees that were threatening to fall on our roof every time the wind blew. With no clothesline, we resorted to hanging our laundry to dry on the fences. This was fine for small items, but didn’t work so well for big items like sheets. I was afraid we might end up with no clean sheets and a very stinky bed if we didn’t make a new clothesline soon.

We are pleased with the new clothesline. It’s made with scavenged timber and rope, but we had to buy a bit more rope, as well as the concrete for the post holes. In the end, it was very inexpensive to make — especially compared with a tumble dryer. And then there’s the matter of the electricity it doesn’t use. . .

Kevin and I do not have a washing machine or tumble dryer here on the Farmlet. Our laundry setup is very basic:

  • One large plastic tub
  • One plunger
  • One garden hose
  • Water
  • One bottle of plant-based non-toxic laundry soap
  • One clothesline
  • One basket of clothes pegs

Wash cycle

Closeup of our washing “machine”

Originally, we were using a toilet plunger (it hadn’t been used in a toilet) to plunge our laundry. Lo and behold, when we were helping my parents to move, we unearthed a fine copper laundry plunger! Mum says she thinks it may have belonged to my great grandmother. My parents have very generously allowed us to bring the laundry plunger to the Farmlet for safekeeping — and for much enthusiastic use! Believe me, it’s much easier to use and does a better job than the toilet plunger. We now feel that we have a deluxe laundry system.

There is one more aspect of the laundry system that still needs to be put in place: Back in February, I bought an antique hand wringer. We have it here in the garage, but need to find a suitably sturdy bench or stand to mount it on.

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